Friday, January 27, 2012

What a treat! Tonight we went to Lovejoy ISD's High School auditorium to watch The Music Man, both Blake and Baylor were in the cast! I think this was Abigail's first time in a 'school building.'

The 1957 original Broadway plot centers around con man Harold Hill, who poses as a boys' band organizer and leader and sells band instruments and uniforms to naive townsfolk before skipping town with the cash. In River City, Iowa, prim librarian and piano teacher Marian Paroo sees through him, but when Hill helps her younger brother overcome his fear of social interactions due to his lisp, Marian begins to fall in love with Harold. Harold, in turn falling for Marian, risks being caught to win her.

The kids were fantastic, the music, props, costumes were all first class! Bravo Blake & Baylor, we're so proud of you! You hard work showed!

Let them praise his name with dancing and make music to him with timbrel and harp.

Thursday, January 26, 2012

There are a few places in Dallas that are just a must see in my
book.One is the Dallas Museum of Art; I
am fascinated by God given talent.My
love of art is more for the 2 dimensional art, beautiful landscapes and still art;
I have grown a fondness for 3 dimensional art.

The Nasher
Sculpture Center has a fantastic collection of sculptures.The Nasher, like many other fine arts in Dallas has a great
program for home educated children.It
is fun to look back at the kids from their first visit in 2008,
2009,
2010,
to 2011.

Today we toured the Nasher with our homeschool group PEACH.The docents broke us up into smaller groups and led us into
multidimensional conversation about the relationship between paintings and
sculptures.

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Today boxes arrived from Mimi, each one with a different child's name on it! Talk about excitement at our house. The kids patiently waited until Jon came home to open and share the fun with him. There were lots of art supplies, videos and Lego's! So we spent this evening watching Indian Jones and painting. Thank you Mimi!

Sunday, January 22, 2012

One of the fun things about Sunday afternoons is the exchange of children. A couple of times a month we trade kids, meaning Caleb goes home with Herrings to play video games with Blake, and Baylor comes home with Abigail. At some point the the girls decided that baking was one of their things to do together. Today they baked a chocolate cake with chocolate icing! They also played on the YooStar and made their own movies, with dancing stuffed animals on the moon. Such good kiddos!

Friday, January 20, 2012

Each
month our home school group holds chapel, this school year we are covering the
fruits of the spirit from Galatians 5:22-23.Caleb was given the topic Kindness for this month’s devotional.He did a great job and seemed to be very much
at ease.

Thursday, January 19, 2012

In 1932, C.E. Doolin entered a small San Antonio cafe and
purchased a bag of corn chips. The manufacturer of the chips was selling his small business, so he
purchased the recipe, and began to sell FRITOS® Corn Chips from his Model T
Ford. The kids posed by the same Model T
that is in the lobby of the Frito Lay headquarters in Plano.

Marketing Minds!

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Today PEACH
took 100+ homeschooler to tour the Frito Lay
headquarters in Plano.
We broke up into smaller groups and
spent an hour and half touring the facility.The building is definitely state of the art with atriums, cafes, health
clubs, beauty salons, and everything else you can imagine!We toured the Research and Development and
got to check out the test kitchen and watch the process of Cheetos and Lays
being made.The kids learned that a
majority of the positions at the facility require an engineering degree whether
it be mechanical, chemical or electrical
engineers.

Research & Development

Ab's bag design

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.One
of the cool presentations included an introduction to the concept of
sustainability including composting, recycling, upcycling, and
energy conservation. Abigail was excited to show the upcycling of the pop cap
tabs into the bracelet she was wearing. The kids were also able to create their own
new chip bag, package and seal them in product development.

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Today we ventured out to Fort Worth for the Fort Worth Symphony’s Young Persons’ concert.This year’s program featured Aaron Copland’s Suite from Appalachian Spring.Today’s program focused on the process of collaboration between the composer, Aaron Copland; choreographer, Martha Graham; and set designer, Isamu Noguchi to make this performance come alive.

There was a narrator who told the story of the ballet along with the full symphony orchestra.Before the performance the kids learned the folk song “Simple Gifts”.To perform along with the orchestra.As the narrator told the story, image s from the book Ballet for Martha: Making Appalachian Spring were shown on the screen above the orchestra.

One of the great benefits of field trips as homeschoolers is we are not seated on the floor with the masses.Since we are usually smaller groups we get the benefit of great box seats!Today’s performance was at Bass Hall and thebox seats had a coat room attached to each box, very posh!The kids were quite impressed!

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

﻿﻿This school
year Caleb is serving on the Youth Advisory Committee for the Sixth Floor Museum.The Y.A.C. is comprised of ten youth from 10
different cities around the metroplex, all high school aged.They give their input on everything from the
JFK website, Facebook page, exhibits; and serve as ambassadors special museum
functions, programs, and civic events (including Stephen King recent book
signing stop in Dallas
for 11/22/63).

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﻿﻿﻿﻿

Tonight museum
curator, Stephen Fagin joined the committee on the 7th floor, which is
off limits to the public, and shared several artifacts that are not currently
on display.One of the great pieces of
history Mr. Fagin shared included the hand written notes by all the Trauma 1
staff at Parkland Medical who attended President Kennedy!He also brought actual reels of news footage
filmed when Oswald was shot!

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﻿

Footage of Oswald shooting

Mr. Fagin also
brought the controversial camera of alleged eye witness Gordon Arnold.If you remember Mr. Arnold came forward in
1978 claiming he was at DealeyPlaza just a north of the concrete
retaining wall on the grassy knoll, and that a bullet passed extremely close to
his left ear, then he dove to the ground. Arnold said a
man armed with a revolver and dressed in a Dallas
police uniform kicked him while Arnold was still
lying on the ground then demanded his movie film then threw the camera back at Arnold.There are no corroborating photos verifying
Mr. Arnold’s.

Ruby's chains

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The kids were also shown the transcripts for the closing
arguments in the Jack Ruby trial where Mr. Ruby was convicted of murder with
malice in 1964.If you remember the
verdict was overturned and set for a re-trial in 1967, however Mr. Ruby became
very ill with cancer and died at ParklandHospital.While at Parkland
even though Ruby was deathly ill, he remained chained to the bed because he was
still a prisoner.Mr. Fagin showed the
kids the actual ankle chains that Ruby wore.

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Most of the items we saw are in the vaults of the museum
and some are brought out to rotate the exhibits, but other remain archived.

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Probably the coolest item the kids saw was an exact
duplicate of the rifle Oswald used.The
gun was not a replica but the exact manufacturer run, make and model used by
Oswald, including the Japanese sights and leather strapping.Of course Oswald’s actual gun is in Area 51
but it was an eerie feeling to look thru the scope of that rifle.

Sunday, January 8, 2012

Most of our friends know that Caleb collects aluminum cans to recycle and then gives the money to our churches mission funds. With that said we have LOTS of aluminum cans! Friends, neighbors and even Jon's co-workers bring us bags of cans. Caleb smashes them and then when we have a dozen trash bags full, we take them to the recycle center.

Back when he first began recycling cans, Caleb would pull the tab top off of the cans before smashing them. He saved all the tab tops and used them to make chain armor and everything else boys create with random stuff.

Recently I came across a tutorial on how to make tab top bracelets and showed it to Abigail. Since we have an abundance of tabs, we dug out the ribbon and got started crafting. I think when the day was over she had created a dozen or so cute bracelets. She is planning to take them to church and share with her friends. Abigail has already decided she wants to make a belt too!

Saturday, January 7, 2012

The first Saturday of the month means it's Home Depot Day! Home Depot host Kids Workshops on the first Saturday of each month with great wood working kids. The kids sand the wood down, use wood glue and hammer, nail, and screw to assemble each month's project. Ideally the workshop is for kids 5 to 12 but Frankie still loves making the kits. Recently Home Depot has added a painting station so that once the kids have completed their project they can paint them!

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

My family enjoys oatmeal for breakfast at least twice a week. It is one of those quick, easy, nutritious meals that everyone likes. Originally I would purchase boxes of instant oatmeal, but once my son hit those teenage years he could easily eat four packets of oatmeal for breakfast! That was a lot of sugar! Some instant oatmeal manufacturers make low sugar, heart healthy versions but they were a little too bland.

I set out to make a topping that I could mix with instant oatmeal that would be tasty but not quite so sugar-filled. I mix up the following ingredients and keep them in an air tight container. For every 1/2 cup of instant oatmeal they add one tablespoon of mix. Some days we add dry or fresh fruit, but most days they add hot water stir and breakfast is served. . . . unless you're a fourteen year old boy, then you repeat this process four more times! Did I mention, it is much cheaper than those individual packets!

Oatmeal Topping1 cup milk powder

3 teaspoon salt

1 cup sugar

½ cup brown sugar Splenda

½ cup Splenda

2 teaspoon cinnamon

1 cup instant oats

Place all of the ingredients above in a blender, turn on low until the mix is thoroughly mixed. Make sure oats are placed in the blender first, they will mix into a fine powder and thicken the oat mixture.

Monday, January 2, 2012

Polymer
clay is one of those craft products that have always intrigued me, but I have
never worked with it.With the recent
popularity of the online pinboard Pinterest
I have gotten a better look at all the possibilities.A recent pin on how to make fingerprint
jewelry caught my eye, brilliant!Imagine capturing the kid’s fingerprints in sterling silver using
polymer clay.

I
used the tutorial and had the kids press their thumbprints into the clay.Since the kids aren’t exactly babies anymore,
the charms are a little larger than a typical charm.Next I stamped each child’s initials and
simulated birthstone.Finally I used a
small petifour cutter to cut the charms into heart shapes.

I
created a smaller heart with each child’s birth year.The next step was to coat each piece with
silver dust and bake at 250 degrees for 15 minutes.After cooling, I coated each piece with a
sealer and then assembled my charms.

I
created a set in silver and in gold.The
polymer was so easy to work with and I foresee many more similar projects!I was amazed at how clear the fingerprints
showed up and just how pretty these charms turned out!Because they are made of baked polymer clay
they are lightweight even though they have a metallic look.

Keep my commands and you will live; guard my teachings as the apple of your eye. Bind them on your fingers; write them on the tablet of your heart. Provervs 7:2-3

Sunday, January 1, 2012

I don't know
that this title is adequate, but for most people it is the time when they make
changes in their life. I posted at the beginning of 2010 that our family is in the habit of reading thru the
Bible every year together using a NIV Chronological Bible.

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It is like
brushing our teeth, it is part of the daily routine. We get up, the kids do
their math lessons with Jon, I prepare breakfast, we eat, get ready for our
day, and then before we all go our separate ways we read the Bible together.
The chronological versions of the Bible separates the scripture into 365
readings in the order scholars think they actually occurred. For example when
you get to the gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and they all tell the same
story you would be reading each of those on the same day. For me, I've found it
really has helped be understand the course of events better..

This will not
be the only Bible time we have during the day, the kids have done studies on
New Testament Survey; Denominational Doctrines; the Reformation Movement; Apocrypha
Writings; and studies of various individual books of the Bible. Jon enjoys studying
books of the Bible and reading commentaries. Me, I like just about any of the
Beth Moore study books or First Place. But our reading in the
morning is all of us together reading, every single day! .

Last year the publishing
company was changing the cover on
the particular publication that we have been reading for the last decade, so I
purchased Bibles with the old cover for each of the kids. One day when they go
off to college I will pack it along with them and we can all still read
together-ish! You don't have to have a chronological Bible to read scripture in
the order in which scholars think they occurred there are great reading plans that let you use your current Bible.